We are told that Lady Elliot smoothed Sir Walter's faults. I can imagine she did the same for Elizabeth. Had Lady Elliot lived longer, Elizabeth must have benefited from the additional guidance in household/financial management that her mother would have given her. She would have more likely been forced to acknowledge the rights of her sisters to equal attention locally and during London visits. Her own dowry would have been larger and more secured. Her father’s reputation would have been less flawed. Her temperament and manners might have been more aimed at pleasing and less proud. I think she would have been attractive to a larger group of men for these reasons, and would have found more of them acceptable. She might have been a wife by now, properly settled with a baronet of her own, or at least a very respectable wealthy private gentleman.

We will never know what Elizabeth could have been if her mother had been around to influence her about moderation and economy.